


Kinktober #16: Shibari

by blessedharlot



Series: Kinktober 2019 [8]
Category: The Great Library Series - Rachel Caine
Genre: F/M, Public Nudity, Rope Bondage, Shibari
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-11-26 09:09:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20927708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blessedharlot/pseuds/blessedharlot
Summary: The most powerful woman in the world explores a fun, new hobby, publicly.





	Kinktober #16: Shibari

Khalila’s focus was crystal clear. She quickly and carefully laid the rope exactly where she wanted it -- double line stacked next to double line, coiling around the chest and arms. Then she mentally reviewed her next five steps in the chest harness - the first portion of the larger downward-facing ball tie - and quickly moved to implement them. 

The racing clock meant nothing. Khalila had done far more under tighter constraints. She may be inexperienced at doing this particular task in public, but this kind of pressure was still a lark, a breeze. It was a treat, to focus only on placing the relatively cooperative jute rope into a certain pattern, to bind a quietly cooperative model into a tight and graceful pose.

Another wrap now lay in place. 

Khalila pulled her running rope through the tight spot, laying her hand between the jute and Dario’s nipple. Now was not the time to give him a rope burn there. Another lark’s head. Another pullthrough of her remaining length to continue her work. Over and over. Specific repeated actions made a harness. Like making a prayer.

Khalila could feel the tournament monitors on the edge of her awareness… each one hovering just past the guards that had become an ever-present part of Khalila’s personal space. Most competitors in this event didn’t get  _ four  _ official monitors, Khalila presumed. But her assigned carrel was seemingly on the overlapping border between all of their assigned territories. It was a choice Khalila found rather ludicrous, considering her security retinue filling the entire venue. But, Khalila supposed the administrators of this grand and historical competition were more than a bit rattled to have the Archivist of the Great Library of Alexandria enter just like any other competitor… perhaps even more rattled when she insisted on being treated like everyone else, security concerns aside. Over the centuries of its existence, plenty of high-ranking dignitaries had entered the Beauty of Tight Binding -- the most prestigious exhibition and open tournament of erotic and decorative rope tying in the world. But sitting royalty had not done so in over three hundred years, and no Curator of the Library ever had.

Another lark’s head. Another wrap. 

Then again, Khalila thought, perhaps I’m being prideful. Perhaps I’m not the reason for my four official observers. Perhaps they’re here to see my beautiful model.

Without slowing down one iota, Khalila shifted her awareness as her hands spun through the pattern, and she let herself feel the heat of Dario’s flawlessly tanned skin. As she wrapped another double line, she noticed how the rope lay against his carefully sculpted chest. She admired the lines of his kneeling position on the elevated platform, and the shape of his arms folded and bound behind his back. She glanced up to see his black curls, and they made her smile. He didn’t look her way -- his eyes were glassy with obedience... and no small amount of arousal, she expected. But his cock and his balls, covered and bound with black silk fabric in the traditional style, remained out of her way and tied back sling-style against his thigh. It was the only clothing he wore.

This tie could draw more attention to his stomach, she thought, if I modified it here, split the lines and added a spider web pattern. He’d look very, very good with an open, geometrical shape of rope drawing attention to his abdominals.

But she resisted adding decoration to Dario, on this round at any rate. First round was compulsories. No suspension. No variation from a brief list of standard ties. There was one of two grades to receive. You passed to the next round, through absolute precision of work and through applying the principles of the art form. That earned your model a gold silk scarf to wear. Or, you were wished well as you left, a glittering pale blue silk scarf for luck and blessings on your further training.

Some judges might consider it quite the victory to send the Archivist home... to find any real or imagined fault with her work. She knew that. Khalila knew the risks of unjust treatment even as she sent word through back channels that she truly wished her work to be evaluated on merit, and would respect the professionalism of any judge who made their honest assessments known through the marks they gave her.

But she wouldn’t have it any other way. She’d hope for honest judges, and do her best work. It was a pleasure to be here, flexing an entirely new set of competencies. Showing off work unrelated to her role in the Library. Knowing from the buzz in her belly just how much Dario was enjoying being shown off, one small step away from nude in front of a great many colleagues.

Khalila finished the chest harness, and paused to lift her head and canvass the room. Most competitors were spending as much time bent over their work as she was, though a few still watched her, no doubt bending a critical eye to what they saw.

She spared only a few instants before she returned to Dario.

“Down, love,” she said firmly, patting his shoulder. “Now.”

Lifting only partly from his kneel, Dario took two practiced, elegant steps back on his knees. Then, without the use of his bound arms, he slinked down to center his groin on the small platform, and lay flat on his stomach, all ropes still secure.

He turned his head to one side, pressed that cheek to the platform, and lifted his ankles together, so that Khalila could begin work on his two-column ankle tie, which matched his box tie chest harness so nicely.

  
  
  


Khalila had just completed Dario’s pulley system, connecting his ankles and bound arms, and stepped back to examine it. She made one small adjustment to the coils of rope between his ankles… and then on a whim, she changed a single element of their plan. With his groin flat against the platform in this position, there was - according to tradition - no need for the sling of silk covering him. So she quickly untied the silk and gently pulled it free. He now lay naked and bound amidst one of the most prestigious crowds in the world.

Dario’s gasp of surprise was partially blotted out by the sound of the bell that marked the end of work time. 

Khalila squared her shoulders, and put her hand to the exposed side of Dario’s face.

“Be good, my beloved,” she said. “Judging commences now. I’ll see you in twenty minutes.”

Dario’s glassy eyes flickered, to focus on her with effort.

“I will protect your honor,” he said with a smile. Dario preferred the most dramatic language possible to express his simple intention that he would sit still for judging, and Khalila loved him for it.

Khalila flashed her best smile to the other riggers as they waited, though it was several tense minutes before any of the milling crowd came close enough to engage with her. She and a few others nervously chatted about weather and travel to the venue.  She was carefully refraining from contributing to a conversation about fussy models, when the bell chimed again, and riggers began quietly filing back inside to discover their fate.

Khalila didn’t have to make it far into the room before she had a sightline back to Dario… still carefully in place. A piece of gold silk tucked carefully into the ropes across his arm.


End file.
